JOSHUA 10

The theme of today's lesson is Commitment. But I noticed something interesting when I started to read the Leader's Guide for this lesson. It talked mainly about the commitments we are called to keep, while the Student Guide talks almost exclusively about God's commitment to his people. Of course, both are important and our behavior should echo the character of God. In addition, there is another important theme I will be pointing out that is related to today's lesson-- that of discernment.

The Structure of Joshua 9-11

1. The Treaty with the Gibeonites (ch. 9)

"When the kings [of the seven Canaanite nations] heard of this, they gathered together...to fight Joshua and Israel.”

2. Defending the Gibeonites (ch. 10)

“When ...king of Jerusalem heard..., he...sent to [four other kings] saying, "Come up...and let us smite Gibeon; for it has made peace with Joshua and with the people of Israel. Then the five kings...gathered their forces, and went up with all their armies and encamped against Gibeon...”

3. Defeating the Kingly Coalition (ch. 11)

“When...king of Hazor heard of this, he sent to [various kings and the seven Canaanite nations]...And all these kings joined their forces and came and encamped together...to fight with Israel.”

The whole section ends with the summary statement, “And the land had rest from war” preparing us for the more serene second half of the book.

Now we are ready to tackle today's lesson, which begins with Joshua 10:6:

“And the Gibeonites sent to Joshua at the camp in Gilgal, saying, 'Do not abandon your servants; come up to us quickly, and save us, and help us, for all the kings of the Amorites who live in the hill country are gathered against us.'” (10:6)

You have to admit that this is a rather strange place to begin a lesson since it brings up a lot of questions that require some background information. Who are the Gibeonites and why do they seem to treat the Israelites as if they were bound to them by some sort of treaty? Let's first look at the map.

If the Gibeonites are obviously Canaanites occupying the land that God promised to Israel, why did the Israelites have an alliance with them rather than wiping them out as commanded? Who can summarize what went on in Chapter 9 right before this event?

Put yourself in the place of Israel's leaders. How would you have reacted to this story of the Gibeonites?

At this point there is one of my favorite of Jesus' sayings that we need to remember: “I am sending you out among wolves. So be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)

What happens if you are only a dove? The letters of Peter and Jude illustrate that problem – you can be easily taken in by false teachers. And also you can too easily believe anything that Christians tell you, even if it isn't heretical. Note that in verse 14 the Jewish leadership was criticized for not asking direction of the Lord – (men never ask for directions). We need to go back to the source of truth in all cases.

What if you are only a serpent? I am a little suspicious by nature (My excuse is that I grew up in L.A., and we tend to a be cynical, sarcastic, and worldly-wise rather than innocent.) That extreme is just as bad.

Back to our story:

Joshua 10:7-8

We have two examples of keeping commitments here. God will keep his promise of victory. But just as important an example for us today, Joshua kept his commitment to the people of Gibeon even though he didn't really have to since they had tricked him into a covenant.

What sort of commitments are we as Christians called to honor? Financial (bankruptcy), Marriage vows. Verbal promises – even ones that are not legally enforceable or just tacit agreements.

Joshua 10:9-11 Note that the credit for victory is shared between the Israelites and God, but there is no doubt who is really responsible. God miraculously sends down hailstones on the enemy – this miracle is in keeping with most of the other biblical miracles in that it is consistent with God's normal activities in the natural world; the timing of the event is the miraculous component.

You can see the route they took on a map.

And now we come to the problem passage.

Joshua 10:12-14  Put on your critical hat and listen to the following story:

“In the late 60's, in preparation for the Apollo moon landings, a computer at NASA calculated the positions of the earth, moon, and other bodies in the solar system with great precision far into the past and future.

This computer program noticed a glitch in the fifteenth century BC, a glitch caused by the bodies in the solar system not being in their correct positions, indicating that nearly a day was missing from time. An additional 40 minutes was found to be missing several centuries later, so that the total missing time was one full day.

NASA scientists and engineers puzzled over this problem until one of them opened the Bible to Joshua 10:12-14 and 2 Kings 20:8-11. He then realized that their missing day could be explained by addition of nearly a day at the time of Joshua and 40 minutes at the time of Hezekiah when the shadow of the sundial moved backwards, thus proving that these biblical events actually occurred.”

Have any of you heard this story before? What is your response?

This story, which has been shown to be a total hoax, was carried in a few newspapers in the late 60's and early 70's, but was mainly spread by word of mouth among Christian audiences in the United States. It is less common in the United States now, but apparently this story has begun to circulate in third-world countries. It continues to circulate, primarily because people want to believe it.

There are two basic considerations to take into account when discussing miracles:

Believability of miracles

“For mortals it is impossible, but for God all things are possible.” Matthew 19:26

By the way, I realize that I am taking this passage a little out of context.

“Belief that 'with God all things are possible' is a far cry from the assumption that all things are therefore probable.” Willem A. VanGemeren

Phenomenological language

Did the sun actually stand still? This passage has been quoted by skeptics who say that it shows that the Bible teaches erroneously that the sun moves around the earth instead of the other way around. There is an easy come-back to that objection. The Bible uses phenomenological, or observational, language. Events are described in terms of their appearance to an observer, not in terms of any underlying physical causes. We use exactly the same language today when we say “The sun rose and the sun set” even though we know it is the earth's movement, not the sun's, that causes those events.

With that in mind, the most obvious interpretation of this passage is that God halted the rotation of the earth for one day to give enough daylight hours for the Jews to pursue the fleeing enemy. God certainly could have done this, but is that what is being described? Halting the rotation of the earth would lead to world-wide chaos and destruction unless God simultaneously altered or suspended a number of other physical laws at the same time. So I think one should at least investigate other possibilities,.

1. God just slowed down the rotation of the earth. At least two sources that I know of have proposed this as a way to get around the physical problems resulting if the rotation were halted altogether. Unfortunately, there would still be world-wide disaster in this case so you don't really gain anything from this interpretation.

2. God caused the light of the sun to refract through some cosmic "mirror" so that it could be seen a day longer. Some sort of light refraction is another possibility, but it is pure speculation. Also, no such phenomenon has been described in any other Near Eastern culture of the time, which would be expected from people who worshiped the sun and the moon and were constantly on the lookout for omens in the sky.

3. The Hebrew word for "stand still" may signify that the sun was to remain hidden or "silent" during the violent thunderstorm that accompanied the troops as they fled before the Israelites. The coolness brought by the storm relieved the men and permitted them to go on fighting and marching for a total of more than eighteen hours. This is another possibility, but it requires a meaning for the Hebrew verb which is not the normal translation.

4. Joshua is actually calling down a curse on the gods of the Canaan [not Gibeon] (the sun and the moon) to “cease” from helping the Canaanites [not the Gibeonites]. This interpretation implies that Joshua actually believed that those gods existed.

5. The heavenly bodies are called on to “freeze in shocked amazement over the great victory won by Israel over its enemies.” “The sun raised high its hands; the moon stood still in its exalted place, at the light of your arrows speeding by, at the gleam of your flashing spear.” Habakkuk 3:10b-11

Notice that this last interpretation obviously treats the language as being figurative, rather than literal. So how do we distinguish between these different usages? Here are some guidelines from a Hermeneutics Class I taught several years ago.

It is best to start out assuming that biblical language is literal unless certain situations apply. Thus, non-literal, or figurative, language should be expected:

1. When the specific genre of the passage in which it occurs is poetic rather than prosaic. Since we are in one of the history books, one would expect literal language to be used by the author, but:

a. 10:12b-13 is written in poetic couplets (typical Hebrew poetic parallelism).

b. It contains other non-literal language. In this case an apostrophe to the sun and moon.

c. Who is the author in these verses? It is a quote from the Book of Jashar, also quoted in II Sam. 1:18-27, a poetic passage containing an apostrophe to the mountains.

2. When a literal reading would:

a. result in a logical absurdity,

The sun and moon are visible during a hailstorm, and Joshua expects the sun and moon to obey him.

b. contradict established facts

Evidence here is of the negative sort. There is no historical record of such a tremendous world-wide event in other cultures of the time.

c. contradict other biblical teachings.

Joshua is talking to God in vv. 12a and 14, not the sun and moon.

7. Joshua 10:12-13 describes poetically what is described literally in Joshua 10:9-11.

a. The author of Joshua 10:14 is more amazed that God listened to Joshua than with the long day itself.

b. There are close parallels in accounts of two other OT battles: Exodus 15, where Moses and Miriam sing poetic songs following the literal description of the crossing of the Red Sea. An even closer parallel is found in Judges 4-5. Ch. 4 (in prose) describes God sending a thunderstorm during battle to aid the Israelites. Ch. 5 (in poetry) says “the stars fought from heaven.” (v. 20)

So the accounts in both Joshua and Judges poetically associate weather conditions on earth caused by God with the actions of heavenly bodies – sun, moon, and stars.

I should add that all of the sources I consulted and quoted are from evangelical authors. These are not merely the ideas of liberal authors out to purge miraculous elements from the Bible.

In conclusion, keep your commitments as God keeps his, and don't accept everything you are taught without applying some spiritual discernment.